Nick Denton, the British-born boss of Gawker Media, was interviewed by media writer Jeff Bercovici for Playboy magazine. Not only did he discuss why he hates liberals in America ("so (bleep)-ing prissy" with conservatives), but he discussed his engagement to actor Derrence Williams.

Within that, Denton lectured that what is called the "mainstream press" is still paralyzed by gayness: "the true pansexual messiness of most gay sexual histories is not something they or their readers are ready for." There's always room to "grow" into the sexual future:

PLAYBOY: The New York Post's gossip column reported at the time that the boyfriend you're referring to threw a brick through your window.

DENTON: It was a stone, not a brick. I actually gave them the whole backstory. I knew they couldn't do anything with it.

PLAYBOY: Why couldn't they?

DENTON: Too complicated. The mainstream press doesn't really want gay gossip. They can't even deal with closet cases. It's a mixture of lingering distaste for the homosexual act and a modern version of correctness. They don't even know whether outings are politically correct or not. So they're completely paralyzed. They do not know how to deal with gay guys. They're just about getting to be able to deal with, say, a gay engagement being news. But the true pansexual messiness of most gay sexual histories is not something they or their readers are ready for.

PLAYBOY: Which is funny, because "pansexual messiness" sounds more interesting than most of what you read in the gossip pages.

DENTON: Well, I think everybody is more interesting than how they're portrayed.

PLAYBOY: Do you ever have misgivings about exposing people's private lives, their sex lives?

DENTON: If there's a gap between your private behavior and your public status, that's what makes the story for us. To my mind, the only real modern sin is hypocrisy.

As for the part about prissy liberals, Denton said: "I hate liberals in this country so much because they're so fucking prissy. Did you ever see that documentary about Lee Atwater, Boogie Man? Lee Atwater was a terrible man. The Willie Horton campaign is a stain on the Republican Party, on the Bush family—let that all be stipulated. But you see in this movie that he has such joy in the battle, in the struggle, in the game, you know? He loves it. There are interviews with Michael Dukakis 20 years later, and Dukakis still cannot understand what happened. He still doesn't know how he got beat. This whiny, prissy—who would you want to work with? Who would you want to have beside you in the foxhole? Atwater is way more fun, probably a way better colleague, with way more appetite to win."